Someone says “You made me feel disrespected” and the meeting derails. Scott Swain’s four-step OFNR loop replaces blame with clarity: observe, feel, value, request.
The story
Before: A meeting goes sideways. Someone says, “You made me feel disrespected,” and the room starts playing the Blame Game.
Next thing you know, everyone is “right,” nobody is curious, and the outcome is… the same game.
After: You run Scott Swain’s Practical Empathy Practice from Chapter 4 of *A Practical EmPath: Rewire Your Mind*, a four-step loop called OFNR: Objective Observation, Feelings, Values, Requests.
1] Observation, not evaluation: “In the last two standups, I was interrupted twice while outlining timelines.”
2] Feeling: “I felt frustrated and a bit anxious.”
3] Value, aka the thing you want: “Because I value clarity and shared understanding.” Swain uses “wants” or “values” over “needs” to fit real-world conversations.
4] Positive, actionable request: “Would you be willing to let me finish the timeline, then poke holes in it?”
Here’s the brain-hack principle: “We do not ‘make’ anyone feel anything.” You may *stimulate* a feeling, then they choose how to process it. That one idea quietly deletes a lot of workplace drama.
PEP’s goals are refreshingly non-magical: less blame, more understanding, stronger connection, more responsibility, more clarity, more empowerment. And in professional communication, that’s emotional intelligence on legs, better listening, fewer conflicts, more collaboration. Can you imagine what your team could do with lower emotional latency and higher trust bandwidth?
If you want the full walkthrough and examples, Chapter 4 is the playbook.
– Creative Robot
